I do have a gypsy story.
We went shopping this afternoon in a big indoor farmer's market. It was sort of like a supermarket, but only for produce, and everybody sold their own stuff instead of there being a checkout. After getting over our apprehension (my brother and I still have only a rudimentary grasp of how the numbers are spoken, which made paying for vegetables an adventure) we managed to pick up a bunch of apples, cabbage, carrots, strawberries, garlic, etc. All for tremendous prices; a kilo (about half a pound) of fresh, homegrown, organic apples was 1.50 Lei, or 50 American cents.
Anyway, my brother and I are sitting outside another market where my sister and my brother's girlfriend have gone in to get something else. I'm in the middle of eating an apple when a little boy (in nice, clean clothing) walks up to us and holds out his hand. He's speaking in Romanian, I suppose, but we don't understand him. We tell him several times that we don't understand, but he doesn't leave us alone. He starts giving my brother angry looks, then he'd laugh and he probably called us several names, and then he'd put out his hand and make demands again. (Meanwhile, my brother and I are making jokes right back at him; I even sang him the song I wrote above. He wasn't entertained.)
On three occasions, adults came by and scolded him. We don't know if they knew him, but we supposed he was a common fixture on this particular corner. One of the adults was a gypsy woman with two other women. You can tell because they wear garish bright colored dressed and head scarves.
Anyway, he didn't give up. He started making motions like he was going to steal the groceries in my brother's hands. He'd lunge out and snatch like he was grabbing for them, and my brother held up his finger like, "You don't want to do that."
Soon thereafter, my sister and my brother's girlfriend came out of the market. The boy made similar demands of them, and they apologized and we began to walk away. The boy followed us for about half a block, when finally he got tired of being ignored and punched my sister on the arm before running away.
I told this story to a nice young man I met later in the day, and he told me the boy was almost certainly a gypsy. I can't say, but it wouldn't shock me. They carry a lot of stereotypes about being thieves, beggars, and criminals, and what I hear is that while they're not always applicable, the rumors are not unfounded.
Anyway, we later saw the boy walking complacently behind some older women. It is possible that he was just some punk kid trying to trick Americans while his mom was shopping.
